Journalist Accuses Al Franken of Groping, Provides Picture for All to See

A Los Angeles journalist has accused Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat who represents Minnesota, of kissing and groping her in 2006 without her consent.

But in her addition to her allegations, she has provided photographic evidence to back up her claims.

Leeann Tweeden is a morning news anchorfor TalkRadio 790 KABC in Los Angeles. In a Friday post on the news station’s website, Tweeden wrote that in December 2006, she was part of a USO tour to the Middle East that was headlined by Franken, who was famous at the time as a comedian.

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WARNING: The photo below will be offensive to some viewers.

On Christmas Eve, as they were traveling back to Los Angeles from Afghanistan, she wrote that she “immediately fell asleep, even though I was still wearing my flak vest and Kevlar helmet.”

It wasn’t the only time during the trip that Tweeden claimed Franken made an inappropriate advance toward her.

During the tour, she participated in one of multiple skits that Franken had written.

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She claimed “the skits were full of sexual innuendo geared toward a young, male audience,” but when “Franken said he had written a part for me that he thought would be funny, and I agreed to play along.”

“When I saw the script, Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd,” she wrote.

The day they were supposed to perform, Tweeden claims Franken insisted that they “rehearse the kiss.”

Eventually, Tweeden wrote, “I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth.”

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She immediately “pushed him away” and claims she “felt disgusted and violated.”

Tweeden said she came forward after hearing California Rep. Jackie Speier’s story of how she was allegedly sexually assaulted when she was a congressional aide.

“At that moment, I thought to myself, Al Franken did that exact same thing to me,” Tweeden wrote.

Franken responded to Tweeden’s claims on Thursday, saying in a statement that he remembers what happened differently.

“I certainly don’t remember the rehearsal for the skit in the same way, but I send my sincerest apologies to Leeann,” Franken said, according to The Daily Caller. “As to the photo, it was clearly intended to be funny but wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it.”

But Tweeden said Franken knew precisely what he was doing.

“You knew exactly what you were doing. You forcibly kissed me without my consent, grabbed my breasts while I wassleeping and had someone take a photo of you doing it, knowing I would see it later, and be ashamed,” she wrote.

“I’m telling my story because there may be others,” she said. “I want the days of silence to be over forever.”